Sunday, July 24, 2016

In my years of pastoring, I have
witnessed people put to use so many different gifts that God has given them. I’ve
seen people develop and implement Sunday School programs, lead people on
mission trips near and far, preach sermons, conduct or sing in or play in great
works of worshipful music. I’ve seen dinners coordinated that feed hundreds of people.
I’ve seen capital campaigns undertaken that have raised thousands of dollars
for church projects. I’ve been blessed by seeing parishioners in my congregations
step forward to do some truly amazing things with God’s help. But there’s one
area in our spiritual life together where I’ve sometimes experienced deafening
silence. And that’s when I say, “Would anyone like to close us in prayer?” Not
everyone, of course, is hesitant to offer prayer. But I would say that of all
the things that make people react with that kind of look students get when they
don’t know the answer and the teacher is looking for someone to call on?
Offering a prayer tops the list.

I’m not sure exactly why this is,
but in part, I think we must have this collective belief that prayer involves
finding just the right combination of words in order to be acceptable to God
and the gathered community of faith. Maybe this is because pastors too easily
slip into the role of professional pray-ers, and we pastors spend too much of
our time in churches and church meetings and church books, so that church-y
phrases just roll of our tongues with ease, and everyone else starts thinking
they have to pray in just the same way.

I can tell you that you’re not alone.
When I was first guest preaching, and in seminary, and in my first years of
ministry, leading congregational prayer and other prayer times was on the list
of things that made me most nervous. Only habit – doing it over and over and
over again – eased me of my anxiety. Prayers in my childhood came a bit easier,
though. When I was in elementary school, and I was having a hard time with
questions about God, my mother told me that I should pray by telling God about
my day. I took her at her word, and did exactly that, in a very literal way.
“Dear God” – always ‘Dear God’ as if I was writing God a letter – “Dear God,
today I got up and had cereal and went to school and at lunch and had recess
and came home and did my homework and played outside and . . .” If I made it
through this recitation, I would then do my “God blesses” – “God bless my mom
and dad and Jim and TJ and Todd, God bless Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Bill
and Aunt Shari and cousin Becky and Ben” – and then, if I made it through all
of that, I would end with the Lord’s Prayer, because, well, we always say the
Lord’s Prayer! Usually, though, I fell asleep somewhere between telling God
about my day at school and telling God about my evening. But it was a daily
routine that I stuck to faithfully for a long time. My personal prayers have
always retained this form though – something like a diary entry, or a letter to
a friend, only directed to God. How about you? How do you pray? Is prayer easy
for you? Challenging? Nerve-wracking? As easy as when you were a child?

We’re not alone in wondering about
how we should pray. Even those in Jesus’ innermost circle sought direction about
the best way to speak to God. Today, our gospel lesson opens with Jesus
praying. He does that a lot in the gospels, often seeking out time and space for
conversation with God. When he’s done, his disciples ask him to teach them to
pray like “John taught his disciples.” We don’t know how John – who we know as
John the Baptist – taught his disciples. But we do have Jesus’s teaching on
pray. Jesus responds with what we have come to call “The Lord’s Prayer,”
although Luke’s recording of it is a bit more simple than the way most of us
have memorized it: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us
each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive
everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” Simple.
God, you are holy. Bring your reign to earth. Give us what we need for each
day. Forgive us our sins – and we are forgiving those who have sinned against
us. Keep us safe from harm. Boiled down, this prayer captures the heart, the
essence of many of our prayers, doesn’t it?

Then Jesus continues with a story: Imagine
that you needed some bread immediately because
company has come unexpectedly and you have nothing to serve, and all the stores
are closed. So you go to your friend at midnight, asking for some bread. Even a
friend might be likely to respond: Hey, It’s midnight, we’re all asleep
already, leave us alone! But, Jesus says, not because of your friendship with
this person, but rather because your friend JUST WANTS YOU TO GO AWAY AND LEAVE
THEM ALONE, your friend might give you what you ask for! Because of your “persistence,”
says Jesus, your friend will respond to your need. Jesus tells us, “Ask, and it
will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches
finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Finally, Jesus
says, if we humans, who are sinful and faulty and imperfect, can still give
good things to our loved ones, imagine how much more God, who is Love, who is goodness, desires to give to those who ask!

I am struck by the word “persistence”
in this text. Is getting God to answer our prayers really just a matter of
asking enough times? Can that possibly be the case? God will answers our
prayers if we ask enough times that God gets sick of us asking and gives in?
That word that we read as persistence –
this is the only place it appears in our scriptures. And I’m afraid “persistence”
is a kind of softened-up translation. It actually means something more like shamelessness or unembarrassed boldness. Those words actually help me understand
better what Jesus is saying.

When I think of people who are
shameless or unembarrassed in their boldness when it comes to asking for what
they want, I think of the way very young children ask for things. Did you fix
yourself a nice plate of something to eat? Most children will not be afraid to
ask you to give them something off your plate. And they might not just ask for
one bite. They’ll boldly ask for and accept as much as you’ll give. Did you
just buy a child a pile of gifts for their birthday or Christmas? They won’t
hesitate to ask for the thing you didn’t buy! Most children aren’t afraid to
tell you what’s on their wish list. When I think of unembarrassed boldness,
that’s what I think of. No fear. No hesitation. No tentative, “maybe, if it isn’t
too much trouble, might you consider listening to my request?” Sure, we learn
to temper our requests as we get older, or if we get in trouble for our
shameless requests, or when we learn about things like what’s rude and what’s
polite. But I don’t think we start out that way.

And the crazy thing is: Jesus tells
us that when it comes to talking to God, we don’t have to be afraid to be
shameless. We can be unembarrassedly bold. We can ask for exactly what is on
our heart. Because prayer is our conversation with God. It’s building a
relationship with God. And what God desirpes is that we will lay our hearts
bare, with no fear, no hesitation. What God desires is that we’ll show to God
everything about ourselves, every hope and dream, every longing. If what we’re
seeking isn’t what God hopes for us, God can work that out with us. If God
wants to shape us and mold us and form our hearts so that we long after the
things that will bring us abundance and joy, so that we’ll long for the things
that make for peace and wholeness, God can do that with us. But it starts with
us knowing, trusting that God so wants us to be shamelessly honest when we open
our hearts to God.

I think Jesus teaches us to be
persistent, shameless, bold with God not because
our repeated prayers are simply a way to change God’s mind, as if God, who is
goodness itself, doesn’t already desire to give us good things. Instead, I believe
that one of the purposes of prayer is to change us, to change our hearts,
as through prayer, through conversation with God, we draw closer to God. We
build our relationship with God. And because of that, we’re changed. One of my
favorite preachers, David Lose, writes this:

What if prayer isn’t simply a petition I
send to God but rather is part of a more active and full relationship with God.
Prayer, from this point of view, is less like putting a message in a bottle –
or, for that matter, in an envelope or email – and setting it adrift in the sea
and more like the regular conversation we have with others with whom we are in
relationship … [Imagine] our whole lives
– our thinking and acting and very being – offered to God as a prayer … How
would we act if our prayers were offered to God confidently, trusting that God
will respond so much more generously than any earthly parent? Perhaps I
wouldn’t just sit back and wait for God to answer but would start moving, get
to work, actually start living into the reality of what I’ve prayed for. So
rather than pray for someone who is lonely, maybe I’d go visit. … At times
prayer is words we say alone in moments of thanksgiving or desperation. At
times prayer is words we share with others, gathered in the sanctuary or around
a hospital bed. And at other times prayer is action and work as we try to live
into and even bring about those things we’ve prayed for. All of this can be
praying shameless, praying, that is, confident that the God who came in Jesus
understands our hurts and disappointments because that God took them on. (1)

I know this: my best relationships, the ones I can count
on, the ones that last – they’re the ones where I’ve been able to be the most
honest. I’ve been able to share my griefs, and ask for help, and share my
celebrations, and share the dreams that I’ve barely let myself hope would come
true. God’s desire is that our very best
relationship would be with God, that we would know that we can knock on God’s
door at midnight, and always find God ready to let us in. As I read through the
scriptures, I’m struck by the frank conversations between God and God’s people.
From Abraham and Sarah to Moses, and the psalmists, through Jesus’s prayers on the
night before he was crucified – the scriptures are a testimony to people
shamelessly, boldly bearing heart and soul to God. And then, friends, we find
those same people, trusting in God and God’s goodness, getting to work, ready
to work with God to bring about the world for which they prayed. Jesus
describes a pray-er who is taking action: asking, searching, knocking. How much
more, how much more does God want to give us? Ask – and be ready to find out!
Amen.

(1)David Lose, In
the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/07/pentecost-10-c-shameless-prayer/

* - A nod, of course, to Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Although the content of my prayers were different than Margaret's at that age, my prayer style was similar!